


Watching

by Beren_Laerdir



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:58:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beren_Laerdir/pseuds/Beren_Laerdir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is something a wrote a month or two back. it was simply my trying to see if i could write prose beyond a single paragraph, and i would like opinions on it, if there are any to be had :)</p><p>it is a story about isolation, and about a kind of person that, if they still exist in this modern world, must be very, very rare indeed.</p><p>i might make more of it, if the mood ever takes me.</p><p>any grammar issues are intentional, i have written this as if it were spoken in a more archaic style of my own local english :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

I wake.

 

Pale light and a cold wind filtered through the curtains. The shutters had rotted through during last autumn's unseasonable rain.

Money was too scarce for the wood to make new ones. Just like it was too scarce to replace the pallet that had broken of simple wear and tear. The ground was cold, leeching the warmth out o' me and leaving behind a bone-deep ache that would not pass for hours yet.

I hear the nobility have this new thing. They take sheets of glass and fill their windows with them. Line it with lead so the frame doesn’t shatter the glass sheet the first time a wind blows. The things people do when they have more money than they will ever be able to spend all of. Glass wouldn’t even keep the cold out, so you’d still need curtains or drapes anyway. Such a waste.

Well, so is sitting here, and the doings of rich fops ain’t a thing to me. 

 

I am out here on my own. Two days walk from the nearest decent village. Better part of a week to the nearest market. 

My company is the sky, the salt wind, my horse and whatever animals fall foul of my snares and my traps.

That ain’t my work mind. Trapping is....a thing on the side so they say. Bones make for medicine. So do the eyes and some organs. Skins and pelts make for trade or for my own clothes.

Sometimes I even catch something edible. Those are the good days...otherwise I live off of oatmeal, what roots I can grow or find, and whatever else I pick up in my work.

I am a borderer. Not that y'asked. I walk the border, plainly enough. Pick up waifs and strays. Take anything they’ve got of worth, let 'em keep the rest. Well...that and a few days food. I am no killer.

Not unless I need to be.

Well anyway...that’s as may be. Its only part o' the borderin' anyway. Not the meat of it. Definitely not.

Though, like my....thing on the side, as the saying goes, there is little o' the meat of my work either. In truth that’s a thing I don’t mind so much. 

The main part o' the thing, as you may guess, is that I walk the border, or ride it. On a clear day I can just sit and watch it.

But what I search for, in my walkin' and my ridin' and my watchin', is danger. Danger is different things in different seasons. In spring it'd be foes, marching out of the north or sailing out of the west to reap their harvest on the trading towns to the south. You know. Slaves. Amber. Tin and copper too. In summer your like to see much of the same, and bandits besides, though banditry is more common in winter.

In autumn is when the Reavers come. Reavers are...bandits, after a fashion. Professional like. What they do is in some ways worse and in some less so than a normal bandit. Reavers only take a cut o' what’s goin'. No point in killin' the layin' Hen after all. Mayhap no one even gets killed, if the villagers are smart. There’s less o' the rapine too. On the whole anyway. But Reavers are clever. They have smarts and are smartly led. They know how to hide and where to hide, and as such they know how to find and where to find, if you take my meaning.

Woe betide those as try to hide their things and their possessions from a Reaving party.

Anyway. Autumn is for Reavers. Harvest time and here they come. Usually anyway. As I say there’s not been much in the way of that for a while now. Cant say I know why. Cant say I care. Makes my work and my doings more peaceful though.

Winter now. Winter is the one I worry about this year. Its been a cold one, all things reckoned. Cold year makes for a freezing winter this far south. Winter is a time of wolves, and not all wolves are those that walk on four, if you take my meaning. Wolves are a danger to all. Kith, Kine, foe and friend. 

Now, most Borderer’s, those who're less honest than I, or maybe more stupid, won't be as bad off than me for the nonce. Reason for this is that when we see a danger, we light a smoke. 

From the tower that is. Its where I watch from. I must’ve forgot to mention it. Still, I shouldn’t have to. My eyes are older than yours and I can see it plain as day stepping out my door. These smokes use powders, that give off a colour....you know, a hue of sorts. A colour for a danger, and we get paid extra for our open eyes.

Now. The dishonest and the stupid...they might light a colour for a danger that don’t come. It ain’t always the case. Sometimes the danger turns aside of its own. But too often and well...there’s a story gets told to children, or used to. Bout a herder and his sheep, and a wolf. You know the one. Scare the towners too much and you might make a danger for yourself. As I say, you don’t have to walk on four to be a wolf.

So yeah, as I said. Its been a quiet year so far. That means no extra money for my work, which means I spend more time on my little aside, so to speak. Got me some skins stretching out back, as you may've seen. Even got myself a bird, its been hangin' for four or so days. so there’s stew tonight. Bed with a hot belly tonight, if I’ve any say.


End file.
